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The online platform X has provoked major backlash after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of females by removing their garments.

Several examples have emerged where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.

Company Response and Legal Position

XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".

A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial penalties".

"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities

The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.

It is commonly used to offer commentary or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can modify an posted photo through its AI image editing function.

Background of Criticism and Rules

The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to produce photos and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of making inappropriate content of public figures.

"The platform has been allowing the creation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing images of persons in a pornographic way".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.

It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.